The Eclipsing of Sol Lucis Caelum
by CuriosityID
Summary: Twenty years has passed since the defeat of Ardyn Izunia. Niflheim has undergone a brutal revolution and now seeks peace with Lucis. A treaty has been made; the alliance shall be completed through a marriage between King Noctis's son, Crown Prince Sol Lucis Caelum and revolutionary Adura Invalesca. But no one knows of the Darkness in Sol or the Light in the daughter of Niflheim.
1. Prologue

He comes stealing in softly, bare feet on cold marble, and the only tangible evidence that he is here is when he breezes through a room, light catches onto the gleaming locks of hair, and he smiles like sunshine.

People notice that the prince isn't tall, nor is he of powerful bearing. He dresses all in white and his fingers are usually stained with paint, maybe a blue acrylic streak across his cheek. His eyes are of a magnificent azure and his face is sprinkled with pale freckles, gathered over the young years of summers by the sea. Around his neck is a thin golden chain with stars and moons hanging small and delicate. He looks likes his mother, the Queen Lunafreya and though his differences contrast slightly against his father's dark appearance, the King Noctis Lucis Caelum, they look like family. He looks like a son.

This is Sol Lucis Caelum.

He was born during the height of a battle one wintry day, when demons had invaded Insomnia, rising from the concrete like storms. The king rushed out with blades in hand and his wife was following just behind him. But as she rose from her throne, labor pains seized her and she was compelled to stay behind. The birth was long and painful, just like the battle outside the palace grounds and the queen prayed for the king's speedy arrival and safety. When the child was born the battle was soon over. The king came home bleeding and exhausted, forever marked by a deep cut on his face and a debilitating wound in his back. Memories from long ago were born again.

But he held his son, whispered his name. New memories were born.

Everyone watched as King Noctis stared in awe at the baby, touched the fingers and stroked the fine blond hair. The beautiful baby was a fine melding of purest light and clearest stars. The darkness vanished. The sun came streaking through the windows.

Peace came over the city like the soft snows that drifted through at the time of the new prince's birth. The king and queen stood, both tired and pale but proud and happy, on the palace's balcony. The crowds below, thousands upon thousands, cheered. Coins were minted commemorating his birth, new paintings were made, blessings given in honor of Prince Sol. A new era had come.

Twenty years has passed. The demons have not been seen since. The people take it as an omen: the prince has brought sunlight to the world. And who could deny it with the hope he brings into the room? Who could deny it with the pride in his mother's eyes and gentle joy in his father's?

Who could see any clouds in the skies of Prince Sol Lucis Caelum?


	2. Chapter One

**_A/N: hey folks! There's not so much of my Batfam stuff these days, I've kind of wrote a whole wicked bunch of Final Fantasy stuff so here goes nothing. Sol Lucis Caelum and Adura Invalesca is my original character though not in my original world (but my ideal one). There are aesthetic boards for Sol and Adura on my pinterest account, /happyemobaby. If you really want to get a good look at them, check them out because aesthetics are fun. Enjoy this story, friends. 3_**

 _Sol Lucis Caelum_

The snow is blinding, the wind whips through his hair and he blows it away with a smile. The hard wooden sword in his hand is damp with melted ice but it's better now, he knows. It's harder. Heavier, but harder. Uncle Gladio, halfway across the playing field in the backyard, is grinning at him like a cat. Waiting for him to move.

"Come on," Gladio laughs, tilting his head to crack his neck and grinning. "You can do it, little guy."

"Oh I know," Sol raises an eyebrow and gripping his prop sword with both hands. "But you're getting old, Uncle Gladio."

"Ha!" Gladio thunders and comes towards him on the offense, growling playfully, "think you're funny, do you?!"

The swords clash with successive thunks, wood against wood, and Sol shoves as hard as he can, doesn't give in, he can't give in now. He just gave it to Gladio and he's got to take it back, but not without a hard fight. Gladio combines his weight along with his sword's weight and it's cracking Sol under. But Sol relies on his speed, his resilience – and let's face it, Gladio would never hurt Sol. He's been keeping a sharp eye on him since he was a baby.

"You'll pay for that smart-alecky remark, kid!" Gladio groans, suddenly throwing himself against Sol, wrapping an arm around his leg and pulling him to the ground. Sol exclaims, snow scratching hard against his face and now it's just a mere wrestling match. Sol fights to pull his legs out from Gladio's hold, but the snow is slippery and scuffs up his hands. It's a whirl of his hair falling into his eyes, breathless laughs, Gladio's grip and wild tattoos. He doesn't know how it happens, but suddenly he's pinned and Gladio shouts, "Give up yet?!"

Sol gasps, pushing against Gladio's clasp around his wrists but it feels like a deja vu moment, like he's been here before. He looks up at Gladio, a purely friendly face, someone he knows would die for him in seconds – but there's something about the shape he's in. Forced, cornered, no way out.

"I give up," he pants, frowning. "I give up."

"You okay?" Uncle Gladio asks, giving him a hand up and steadying him. "Got winded?"

"Yeah, I must've," he breathes, running his gloved hands through his hair. His heart is racing and it's not because he's been playing around. He knows that.

Sol feels almost sick as Gladio picks up a sword and asks, "Another round?"

But he doesn't have to immediately accept because a familiar voice calls him from the palace doors behind him. "Heyo, Sol!"

Sol looks over his shoulder and smiles at Prompto, waves a hand. Prompto cups a hand near his mouth and shouts too loudly, "Your dad wants you in his office!"

Sol winces, that was rather soon, he didn't expect that. What could it mean that Dad would want him now right after that...that moment there? Where he got faced with-

"Go ahead, kid," Gladio smiles. "We got time."

He drops his sword, snaps his fingers at Lieca who barks and follows him into the palace. Snow slush leaves muddy puddles on the marble and he kicks off the boots at the door. His scarf is damp and he leaves that there too. He doesn't think on the way to his parents' office. He only knows that there's a rock in his stomach, he's sweating and his nose is running.

He pauses in front of their closed door. His eyes stare into the dark obsidian, his slow breathing echoes in the hall. The rising anxiety is closing in on him but all he has to do is turn the knob and walk in...it's not like he's awaiting execution.

But it feels like it. Like two pairs of piercing eyes will stare down into the depths of his soul and recoil in horror at what they see.

He closes his eyes and focuses on pushing it down further. Deeper.

Sol takes off his gloves, shoves them into his pocket. His cold hands press against the door, forcing himself to move forward and swallow the rock in the back of his throat. It's just his parents. It's just his parents and they just want to talk to him, they just want to be alone with him, he shouldn't look so nervous.

It shouldn't be this hard.

There is always a touch of curiosity whenever Sol enters one of the royal rooms. Everything is so big and the ancient walls tell stories of the kings of old, foretell the future ones. He can't help but smile a little; it's so beautiful. The lighting is nearly pure white, it's heightened by the snow glistening outside. The office is gleaming and quiet except for the gentle hiss of papers sliding against each other, the sunlight falling softly against the marble columns. It glitters in the chandelier above the desks facing one another. Sol's eyes are naturally attracted to it first, even before his mother and father standing behind the king's desk.

"Sol," Queen Lunafreya says in greeting, a smile touching her face. She motions to the chair before the desk. "Please, sit."

Sol approaches slowly, looking into his father's face as if gauging his feelings right now. Sol has seen King Noctis go from happiness and peace - lounging back in his throne as if he was no more than his own age – to a darkness in his eyes that betrays a fear in his heart. Occasionally a limp comes to his frame, he leans over as if in pain, goes quiet with thought. He's older now. Things are changing.

That's when Sol works especially hard to keep his thoughts in order. Put more veils over his heart.

He sits down, almost hesitantly, and he rubs his hands on his pants. Smiles like he should.

Noctis smiles back, folds and unfolds his hands on the desk, leaning forward in a careless slouch. But there's light in his eyes, that blue is sparkling, but his voice is slow. Careful. "As you know...the latest discussions between the Crown City and Niflheim have been successful and beneficial for both countries."

Sol nods; he's seen his father meet with ambassadors, he has gone out to the once enemy country a few times in his life. Even Sol has seen the war-weary, revolution torn Gralea once or twice. The factories bombed by the people, ashes where the Imperial buildings once stood. With the government demolished, the people took back their land. Defeated their demons, inner and outer. Niflheim was essentially destroyed by itself in every way possible.

"We want you to know that an official alliance will soon be announced," Noctis continues quietly, jolting Sol out of his reverie.

And then there's a pause.

Sol takes a sudden deep breath and looks at his mother as if for a cue, "Um...that's...that's good. That's wonderful. A new era."

"It certainly is," Lunafreya nods. Her voice so soft, so gentle. "Niflheim has seen decades of tyranny, darkness and hatred. Since the revolution, they've been struggling to heal and this alliance will aid that process."

Sol nods again, unable to keep her eyes for very long. Continues rubbing his palms together, hunches in on himself.

"We want you to read the treaty papers," Noctis says, handing him a folded sheet of paper, almost blinding in the sunlight.

"Oh, okay," Sol says, taking it and staring at it, noting the careful folds (done by his mother) and curled edges (done by his father). His own fingers open one flap, closes it again.

"Please read it," Luna says and Sol looks up, it all comes together like pieces of the puzzles he loves to play with Aunt Iris. It clicks together in a magnificent symphony of the way things should naturally be. The look in his mother's eyes, how Noctis glances down at his desk, trying to look busy. The gaping silence and Sol inhales.

He already knows what's written in that treaty. But his trembling fingers open it anyway.

He clears his throat, studies the carefully written words, graceful and gracious. It's a big deal, he knows it is, that his father would be so merciful to the country that betrayed him, killed his father, defeated his mother and covered the world in darkness.

Sol knows that Noctis is taking a chance on Niflheim and the words he knows he's going to read should not be taken as a curse.

But nonetheless, he swallows, bites his lip when the words, " _symbol of this alliance shall be manifested by the marriage of-"_

"Th-the symbol of this alliance shall be manifested by the marriage of Prince Sol Lucis Caelum of Lucis to Adura Invalesca of Niflheim."

It sounds so monotone. So Sol looks up at them and there's no smile to be found within the lie factory in his heart.

"I'm going to be married?" he finally chokes.

Noctis returns the smile. "Your mother and I were in an arranged marriage for the good of our nations when we were very young. And though I wouldn't change a thing about it, it complicated matters that we were so young and so much was expected of us. We didn't want that kind of pressure on you which is why we have never planned something like this a long time ago with any other nations. But you and Adura are both of age. It will be different for you."

"You and Adura are the future," Luna says, coming around the desk and kneeling next to Sol, her hands clasping his. "It will be different and maybe difficult, but you honor your father and I by this. You honor the line of Lucis by granting this mercy and grace."

Mercy and grace, mercy and grace. Words like that, it's like rain falling on a forest fire. Sol leans back, the ache in his stomach subsiding a little.

"The treaty will be signed in a few days," Noctis says. "There will be a ceremony and Adura will be there. You will be able to know her before the wedding, I assure you."

Wedding. Ceremony. Adura will be there. The ache comes back. Sol nods for what seems like the four thousandth time in the space of a few minutes because there's just nothing to say. There's nothing malicious or cruel in what they are saying to him. But what's important is that he should be able to see this "alliance symbol" as good a thing as they do. He should be able to think in the best interest of Lucis and Niflheim.

Not his.

"Is this a copy?" he asks, fingering the paper.

"Yes," Noctis answers. "You can keep it."

Sol stands up and Luna stands with him, and he's looking for what exactly to say. He mouths some expressions as if testing them, blinks at his father, wonders what protocol would say right now.

It doesn't matter, because Noctis stands and comes around the desk, wraps his arms around him and kisses the top of his head. "I know," he whispers. "You need time to think."

Sol catches his breath, smelling the spice of his father's cologne, something like outside air caught in his cape. A touch of his mother's instinctive soft scent. It's dark and close in his father's arms. He can even feel Mom's fingers smoothing out his hair.

He just needs to hold on to this. He just needs to grip it and remember it when he's alone in the darkness.

It's that simple.

When Noctis pulls back only slightly, it's just to cup his face in his hands and say, "I'm proud of you."

 _Look, I'll marry anybody you want me to marry._

He almost stumbles out of the room, a backward too-short glance over his shoulder to see his parents smile at him. The hallway is big and empty, curving over him and echoing with the cold breeze through the windows.

He grips the treaty copy in his pocket, crumpling the smooth surface, twisting it over and over again. _It's what I do; take beautiful things and ruin them._

As he comes down the stairs in a daze, he focuses on the sight of Lieca at the floor below. The white of her face, borrowed from her grand-dame Pryna, is stained with mud, her paws making dark tracks across the floor.

Sol sits down at the last step and runs his fingers through Lieca's rumpled hair (she looks like chocolate and vanilla swirled together in a big cuddly bowl). He lets her lick his face, noticing the blur of her bluest eyes. "Hey, Lieca. Hey, girl."

He picks her up and puts her in his lap, holds her close to his chest and ignores her wriggling and damp fur. She eventually settles down and gets quiet, aside from her occasional lick on his neck.

Sol sits there, alone and silent in the big room. He looks up and watches the shadows in the ceiling. The wintry day outside isn't so comforting and fun anymore. It's icy and hard and cruel.

The blue skies are garish and the sunlight is berating and the ache has moved from his stomach to his chest. Sol could never be completely alone, not with parents who love him and three adopted uncles who would protect him with their lives and a kingdom to inherit. A dog to love.

And soon a wife.

But there's so much no one knows about him.

Who knows about the way he keeps his lights on at night? How he can't sleep because darkness gets caught in his lungs and he can't breathe?

 _(Betcha no one knows that the real reason he would come into his parents' bedroom, crawl into bed with them, was that the shadows got too much for him to handle alone. That Mom glows in the dark and Dad is like a star in the velvet sky.)_

No one does. Because how could the King and Queen of Light have a son who knows that he could command pure Darkness if he wanted to? And how could he marry someone from a country that's just recovering from a history of evil and not say something about his own hideous truth? How could he do that to his mother and father, how could he do it to a stranger?

How could he live with himself, how can he live with himself now?

He's supposed to be grown up now, being scared of the dark is for little kids, he's supposed to have it together by now.

Sol bends, holds Lieca tighter, screws his eyes shut to keep tears from slipping out, but it burns them, stings them like flames-

 _Please, no flames –_

He gasps a sob. The palms of his hands are warming, the enclosing strangling world is pressing in on him, something is telling him to scream, scream as loud as he can.

Lieca yelps, jumps out his arms and runs out of the room.

Sol isn't surprised. It's as he always thought it would happen. It must be an omen.

He wraps his arms around himself now, presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. Wills it to go away, _no, not today, I can't. I can't afford it._

He'll just do as he always has. Give it a harder push again, pretend it isn't there, he's as pure as snow.

And if he can do it long enough, convince himself that he's convincing, he can actually walk out of here on his own legs and breathing his own air. He can be Prince Sol Lucis Caelum for a little while longer.

He won't think about what happens after.


	3. Chapter Two

**_A/N: Aha! Bet you didn't expect a chapter for a long time! Well, surprise, surprise, kids; I gotta introduce you to the other partner of this dance. If you likey, please review! Enjoy. 3_**

 _Adura Invalesca_

A flashlight darts around in the black scene and gloved hands shove a hunk of rusted metal, heavy breathing echoing hollow. Eyes protected by tinted glasses, black straight hair knotted loosely, a strong frame walking confidently through the rubble.

"Some Magitek factory this used to be," her voice comes huskily, the flashlight jerking from corner to corner.

"Adura, wait!" another voice, deep and breathless, shouts behind her. "You don't know what might be in here!"

"If there's anything, you think I can't handle it?" Adura chuckles, lifting her glasses and looking all around her. "You know what, Di? This would make a great shelter for the refugees. It's not at all wet in here. That means the roof doesn't leak. We could get this place cleared out and cleaned up."

Dirunitas groans, leaning over, sitting down on the ground. He sighs and scratches the top of his curly dark head. The shadows play weird lights over his muscles and sharp frame. "You're right, my butt's not wet yet."

"Yeah, this is nice," Adura takes off her glasses and throws her wrap closer around her neck. She kicks a few pieces of glass out of the way with her metal tipped boots, moves the flashlight around. She smiles. All technology has been destroyed in Niflheim. Things with wires are treated like demonic vessels, anything with a screen has been beaten and turned to ashes. Some people outside the ruins of Gralea are calling the reconstruction days "The Dark Ages" but that level of strict hatred for technology is the norm in the capital city.

But she's grateful for the one piece the revolution leaders, including her father, Oculus Invalesca, have allowed: a solar powered flashlight.

"We could bring in some two hundred, two hundred fifty people in here," Adura says, moving forward without Di, who struggles to get up, moaning about how sore his feet are. "Set up some bunks, a ventilation system and lighting, plumbing –"

"How fast you think we could get it all set up? And cleaned out?" Di catches up with her.

"Two or three weeks," Adura answers, kicking a broken hideous Magitek head out of her way. She spits in its direction and continues. "If we got a big enough team."

"And how are we gonna do that," Di scoffs, "when a lot of people still don't even live in the capital city?"

"They will eventually come," Adura murmurs, moving ahead of him towards a heap of rubble, broken metal, sheetrock and foundation crumpled together like a mountain. Di pauses, watching her look the avalanche over and start to climb it.

"Yeah, I guess they will," Di says thoughtfully. "The treaty will be signed...tomorrow, right?"

"Uh-huh," Adura grunts, sweeping some rubble away and sighing. "They've offered to help us rebuild. Part of that is to get these shelters up."

Di comes over and pushes an iron rod out of the heap. He takes the end and shoves it into the rock and some pieces come rolling towards them. Adura steps back.

"I guess a lot of things will be changing with the treaty, huh?" Di grunts.

Adura watches him, her face slowly coming down into a frown, turning away from him. "Yeah...a lot of things will be changing."

She sits down on the hard ground, wincing at the feeling of a glass shard underneath her. She dusts it off before sitting down again, folding her arms over her chest.

"Whaddya mean?" Di asks, striking the rock again.

There's a pause, a moment where Adura doesn't know what to say and Di stops, looks back at her expectantly. She glances at him and then has to look down, her fingernails digging into her knees.

"I'm gonna get married," she says loudly, and the sound reverberates throughout the abandoned factory.

"Said what?" Di chuckles and Adura glares.

"The treaty said," she growls. "It's a...'symbol of the alliance'. I'm gonna get married."

Di doesn't say anything, his rod falling through some grit and clanging onto the floor. He stares at her as if she has gone crazy, as if she's half-asleep. "Married to who?"

Adura grimaces in sarcasm, her nose scrunching up, dark wisps of straight hair falling into her face. "Brilliance, to Prince Sol of course. Who else would I be marrying as a 'symbol of the alliance'?"

Di looks off into the dark void before them. He snorts. "Huh. Never would have thought you were the marrying type."

Adura shrugs, tucks the hair behind her ear. "I didn't think I was either. I don't think I am now. But...it'd be a big deal."

The world becomes quiet again. Di studies her face, his flashlight shining onto her. After a moment, he lays the iron rod down in front of the heap, comes over and crunches next to her. Their boots make the dust and gravel crackle beneath their tread.

"I mean," Adura mutters, "I know it'd be a big deal. Niflheim has been against Lucis for years, decades, centuries. We've wrecked so many things for them. We didn't just dabble in dark arts, we got into it and took a bath in it. But this...this treaty, hell, this marriage could be the chance to move on. Finally, move on. I-I'm not trying to erase our history. I'm just..."

"Trying to redeem it," Di finishes for her.

"Yeah," Adura whispers. "Niflheim and Lucis could both heal this way. And I would play a big part in it..."

"But?"

"But...who will I be marrying? I mean, I don't know Prince Sol..."

Adura stands up, slaps her hands of the dust and picks up the rod herself, starts forcing it into the rocks, grunting with the effort. "What I know about him so far is that Prince Sol is the son of the most powerful king in Eos right now, that he's blonde and that he was all of a year old when I was throwing Molotovs into rotten Imperial buildings."

"Oh yeah, and you were all of seven."

"Mature for my age."

"You were born in darkness-"

"-and I told myself I was going to die in the Light."

"You were a revolutionary."

"Still am."

"And he's a prince."

"With everything!" Adura tosses the rod, and glares back at him. "He has everything! And look, I've always known that I will never, _ever_ have a normal life. I've always known that I'm gonna fight the Darkness in my country until the day I die and it's gonna be ugly, it's gonna be hard and dirty. I don't ask for much because nothing, _nothing_ good has ever come my way. But all I ask-!"

And she stops herself, realizes that she's been shouting at the factory around her, the machine that set up demons with robots, evil with metal, hate with innovation. She hasn't been screaming at Di or demanding time to undo itself.

She's been just crying to the heavens.

Di blinks.

Adura shrugs again, looks back at the avalanche. Says quietly, "All I ask is that I could actually love this guy." She exhales, shakes her head. "But I'm a Niff revolutionary and I'm too wild. Too independent. And he's from Lucis, a prince with everything. And if he got to know me.. he wouldn't love me. Because someone like him...how would he love who I truly am?"

And again, there's nothing more to say.

Di picks up a pebble and rubs it between his finger and thumb, mutters, "Your dad would never do anything if he didn't think it was a good thing for everyone."

"I know," Adura sighs. "And 'everyone' means the country. I've always worked for saving Niflheim from itself and this is just another move in that direction."

"Your dad cares about you."

"And that's why I'm marrying King Noctis's son. Not just any guy is Prince Sol."

"He's hella younger than you."

"Ha, yeah...but that's not the point."

"Because I guess that doesn't matter either."

"It's for Niflheim."

"And you gotta do what's right."

Adura looks up and grips the iron rod in her hand, blinks when she thinks she can see a glimmer, a reflection off her flashlight above the rubble heap. "Di, did you see that?" she murmurs, her fingers reaching for the long knives at her side.

Di looks up and stands, peering into the dark before them. It's like a glimpse of light on water, but it's frothing, it's bubbling. Di growls, draws his long dagger.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Oh, yeah," Adura hisses, drawing her knives, and motioning him to follow her. She digs one knife into the rocks, using it to hoist herself to the top. A few pieces toss to the ground, and the surface is unsteady, but there's a light in Adura's eyes and she in for the kill.

The weak glare from her flashlight reveals a creature like a spider, its back covered in a deep violet slime, yellowed teeth slashing towards her with rising speed. Adura dashes, slides underneath it and drives both her weapons into its soft underbelly, wincing at the turquoise blood dripping onto the blades, the screech that vibrates the entire body. She jerks the knives forward, tossing the creature and then she can hear the slashes coming from Di and his dagger.

"Now would be a really good time to get some decent swords!" he shouts above the noise, stabbing the creature in the mouth and throwing it over his head. They watch as its dying body hurdles down the rock slide, spreading it across the ground and revealing a rusted metal staircase beneath it.

"Whoo!" Di shoots a fist into the air. "Did our job for us!"

Adura grins, breathless. "That kill will give us about five more minutes of daylight." She looks back and exhales at the sight, barely lit, before her. "And this will give us another 150 people."

It's an entire second floor, and aside from the roof being a little warped, the numerous broken bottles and ashes, a smashed Magitek generator...it's in good shape. Good enough for Adura.

"Are you crapping me?" Di whines. "This will hold only a hundred people."

"140."

"125."

"135, not one more, not one less."

"Ugh, you win."

Adura smiles. "Always do."


	4. Chapter Three

**A/N: Hiyo folks! Enjoy the new chapter. Happy New Year everybody! If you likey, please review. It's super encouraging. 3**

 _Sol Lucis Caelum_

It's the big day.

He has spent most of it outside in the cold, working out and getting sweaty with it, practicing fight sequences with Uncle Gladio until he successfully wore him out. He practiced alone, he ran with Lieca, he sat down with her in a spacious place surrounded by trees and snow and sunlight. His eyes burned and his nose turned scarlet. He shoved off the feeling of impending doom and pretended it wasn't there. There was a voice howling on the wind, a premonition that this is where it ends, this is the day everything dies. The peace would break and Sol's mind would go with it, but he ran. Sol Lucis Caelum ran from it and even though he knew it was still chasing after him, he didn't look back. If it was going to swallow him alive now, it might as well because Sol wouldn't acknowledge it. He's always known that it would happen. Sooner or later.

Just why, why, he wonders as he tramps in snow and mud and blistering anger at himself, why today? When the treaty is going to be signed by tonight and his parents will be so proud and he will meet the woman he's supposed to marry in a few weeks? Why did he wake up this way, staring up at the ceiling and knowing the sinking, devastating feeling in his whole body said _Here lies_ _Crown Prince_ _Sol Lucis Caelum: a monster took his place_?

And that's why he's exhausted now. It's been too much all day and if he's barely going to make it out of this day without doing something... _horrible_ (he doesn't know what that something would be, but if that one accidental slip in the backyard that left a rather large area of snow into sopping clear puddles –), he needs to get his adrenaline down. He needs to calm down. The heat needs to cool off.

They got him all dressed up to the nines so at least he looks the title of a prince. His signature color has always been silver, a mix of his parents' colors, and they've even laced his crown into his hair. There's a cape that goes with the whole thing but it's too heavy to wear just a few hours before the ceremony.

He comes downstairs, crown weighing heavy and heart heavier, he walks into the kitchens and finds it busy with life. Steam rising from a pot in the sink, the pungent scent of onions being sauteed, the constant chopping of vegetables that will probably not be on his father's plate. Sol walks to the end of the room until he sees Ignis, stirring some sort of batter, and unless Ignis has been a bad teacher, Sol can swear that it's rosemary bread.

"Prince Sol," Ignis says, already recognizing his presence before a word is said. Sol has never figured that out; how Ignis can know even though he can't see.

"Hey," he says sitting down on the counter and tapping his fingernails on the metal surface. "Do you need any help? 'Cause I can help. Let me help."

"Nervous, young prince?" Ignis chuckles, but motions behind him. "I believe there are some apples to be peeled here for the dessert."

Sol jumps off and picks up a knife from the set hanging on the wall, picks up a clean apple and immediately starts to work, forcing himself to focus on the curve of the peeling, to leave as much apple as he can. Curve and cut, dangerously too close to his thumb, but it doesn't matter. Curve and cut. Curve and cut.

The crown slips to an angle, pulling a few strands of hair.

"You didn't answer my question though," Ignis says. "Are you nervous?"

Sol grunts silently, filling his mind with the color red, the red of the apple he's gripping so tightly. "Yes."

"What about? Your fiancee?"

"...I guess she would be my fiancee already."

"It has moved rather quickly, don't you think?"

"Of course it has," Sol starts, a little sharper than he meant. "I only found out a few days ago."

"It's natural that you should feel some anxiety."

Sol grits his teeth, feeling a coldness come over his chest, enclosing around his heart. His knife slips, cuts into his thumb. Blood, a little darker than a shallow wound would have, a drop slides down and penetrates the grey of his cuff.

It's got to be an omen.

"Are you truly alright, Sol?" Ignis asks, softly, carefully.

Sol exhales, grimaces with pain and fear crowding in around him. "I cut myself."

"Badly?"

"I need to throw this apple away. Disinfect the area."

"Are you hurt, Sol?" A deeper insistence in Ignis's voice, his spoon falling against the steel bowl. Sol won't look back, he's just got to move, got to keep moving.

"I need to-" he starts, but then he feels Ignis's arm clasp around him from behind, covering his chest and shoulders. His breathing quickens, his hands shake, another drop of blood falls and red on white again.

Somehow, Sol can't grip three facts at once: blood in a sterile area, Uncle Ignis half-hugging him, and a tsunami of Darkness coming his way.

"I've learned that young princes sometimes just need a bit more support than people telling him what to do," Ignis says. "I believe your father taught me that. The student taught his teacher."

It's not coming through, it's kindness but it's not coming through. Sol grips Ignis's arm with a free hand, as if trying to reach for him as the world beneath him quakes and opens.

He can't have a panic attack here. Not here.

"Clean up your hand, I'll take care of the rest," Ignis says, reaching for the apple by instinct. "If you go and find an interesting book, I'm sure you'll calm down. I'm very thankful that trick has always worked on you because it didn't on your father."

Sol forces a small laugh, but everything in him says, _No, no, I need to be with you, I need to be with someone. If I'm with you, I won't go crazy, I promise. Please, let me be with you._

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

 _Adura Invalesca_

It's the big day.

She's spent most of it in one of the royal escort cars, the wind whipping her hair back and forth. Here's the breeze and the healing world beyond Niflheim so the foreboding isn't so strong as it was when she woke this morning. Snow covers the mountains and valleys alike, deer skip across the road and chocobos are seen in the far distance. The trees reach bony fingers to the wide and open sky and snow cleans the old spaces where evil had been created. The cold stings her cheeks and makes her eyes water, but it reminds her of freedom, hope, rebirth. She grips it, makes it the center focus: this whole ceremony thing, it'll all be about Niflheim's freedom. It will all be for her country. It'll be for the new age, no more the Dark Ages. But the New Day.

The escort includes her father Oculus, mother Artemis, herself. Two of Leader Oculus's right hand men, Aeneas and Lexus. Adura leans back in her seat, her father by her side, silent and still. He stares at the landscapes, a frown coming over his haggard face. The old and faded suit he's wearing sags on his frame, new streaks of white in his hair catch her eye. Adura's hand moves toward his, but stops before contact; the thoughts have to be racing in his mind, things of hope and regret intertwining constantly. So many factors have to work out and Adura winces when she realizes that one of them is the marriage contract.

Adura takes a deep breath, promises herself that she won't let Niflheim down. She can do this. She can do this, even if she has to wear a dress (and not a very impressive one either, Niflheim's not been one for developing fashion these days), makeup and worst of all, these high heeled shoes. Her mom said that it would be best, she has to look formal. It's been easier to run through the deserted Gralea streets in boots and pants, never mind makeup.

But this isn't about the pain of Gralea or the wreckage of the past. It's about making the future beautiful.

A beautiful future, huh, she thinks as the outline of Insomnia appears on the horizon. A beautiful future for Niflheim, and I'm sorry, but how about me?

It's only a thought, a brief one, but it flows back on the waves of her mind the closer they get to the Citadel. The silvery grace of the columns, the powerful width of the staircase with red carpet flowing down, gigantic statues of the kings of Lucis, all overwhelming. As the envoy stops and Adura is escorted out, she stares in awe.

It's supposed to be hers. She will marry the young man in this castle and she will call this place home. Thinking about it, it's like hitting a wall. It's barely real, it's unfathomable. She was a revolutionary yesterday, she'll be a princess in a matter of days.

They ascend the staircase in silence and Adura chooses not to look at the crowds of people behind her, the clicking of cameras and held out cell phones recording. They stare at the small group as memories and history flood the atmosphere. The last time a government of Niflheim came to the Citadel, it ended with lies, death, ruin. She has to walk tall. She has to represent the new face of Niflheim.

The amount of protocol is starting to weigh heavy. Adura's dress flutters like a deep red piece of paper mache wrapped around her shoulders, tight around the waist but flowing loose the rest of the way down. Strands of hair catch in her eyes, she blows them away with a huff. Ignores the doubtful eyes of a royal guard.

The silent marble foyer is cold, reflections of the snow outside shining softly in the ceiling and in the far corners. Candles flicker sweetly, Adura's eyes catch towards them. They are pure light, steady and strong. She can't remember the last time she saw light like that. Lit for no reason at all, not for a desperate grab for good or a starvation for light because not even the sun could stay – but these candles were lit because it would be beautiful.

She was told that the Citadel used to hold guided tours, more than thirty years ago. There used to be signs, great flags to educate children on the past kings. But her father had smiled, said, "King Noctis didn't want the crowds hanging around and making his son nervous."

Adura swallows as the escort leads them to the elevator, feels her stomach knotting as it rises. There are no working elevators in Niflheim.

No technology, it was all eradicated by the revolution. A small smile touches her lips just slightly; she and her friends, Di included, had cut the cords with butcher knives and giggled as the elevator clattered and smashed useless to the ground floor. It felt good. A tiny offering.

A twisting hallway and then huge solid doors, the guards hesitate before opening them, creaking against the floor. A drop of sweat slides down Adura's back, she twitches without thinking. The doors reveal the council room, the winter sky almost blinding through the domed windows. Gothic spires decorate the walls, torches with flames burning bright warm the room and a huge table is laid out with chairs lining each side before it. Adura hears something like announcement of their arrival, but her eyes are focused on the three figures at the end: a king dressed in velvet-like black, a queen like an angel in purest white, and the third –

 _Sol Lucis Caelum_

"The leaders of the New Order of Niflheim, Your Majesty."

Sol grips the arms of his chair, the words ringing in his ears. He can feel his father's fingers graze his as he stands in respect, Sol follows quickly. He thought maybe he could see her – _Adura Invalesca –_ behind one of them, it had to be her father. It's Leader Oculus Invalesca and as he approaches, Sol focuses on his face, notices similar lines on his father. Oculus is a few years older than Noctis and it shows but there's a strength and dignity about the sharpness of his jaw, the clear grey of his eyes, the broad but old shoulders.

Sol tilts his head ever so slightly, trying to see Adura, only her eyes are visible from behind her father and Sol's view. Her dark hair sways in front of her eyes, her forehead drawn in concentration with eyes on the floor. Eyelids glittering gold, long eyelashes and then her eyes suddenly come up to him, flaming dark brown. Sol blinks away.

 _Adura Invalesca_

"- there are no words to describe the gratitude we feel or the hope we have in building a new future.

Dad says good words, right words, Adura thinks, but she takes the small silence to look up once, _just once_ at Prince Sol. He's not looking at her, but keeps his eyes on the ground. Yet in the light reflecting from off the table, his soft youthful face is visible, electric blue eyes shadowed by curved eyelashes. He isn't of bold posture like his father, resembles more of his mother's svelte structure, but there are well-toned muscles underneath. He's in a silvery gray, a cape attached by gold chain sparkles in the sunlight. It's appropriate, it's perfect; Sol Lucis Caelum is presented idealistically, especially considering the concept of rebirth and purity that has always followed him. His hair is nearly white, tossed freely about like Noctis's, but a sparkling twisted crown is visible through the wisps.

It isn't polite to stare.

Adura stares at him.

 _Sol Lucis Caelum_

She's staring at him. Sol can feel her penetrating eyes focused intently on him and who cares about what's being said or about protocol? This woman is making him nervous, she's reading into him like a book. And he doesn't blame her, he is strange; this mix of night and moonlight and presented as sunlight. Not only that but she's going to marry him. Might as well take a good look at him because she's stuck with him and maybe, _just maybe_ she'll see something she likes.

His father is speaking, beckoning the emissaries to approach, to sit down to discuss the matters of the treaty. Eventually they will come to talk about him, about Adura, about the two of them. As they come to the table and sit down, Adura is clearly seen from where he is sitting.

A thought touches him. It's the same game for him. He can look at her too.

Her face is touched with a flush of windburn, those golden flickering eyes darting all over from the table, to the room, to Noctis, to him. The dress she's wearing bares her shoulders a little, sweeping across her chest, the color of embers. Her back is straight, his pose is strongly confident, she doesn't cower or seem distracted. And Sol swallows; she has a beautiful frame. The dress is very becoming.

Very becoming. The back of his neck is burning.

 _Adura Invalesca_

He looks good. That outfit, the grip of his hands on the arms of the chair, the deep breaths he takes (Adura's been counting), there's an inner strength and unknown power deep within him. But there's something about Prince Sol that belies everything he shows. It might all be in her mind and it might just be her hopes that she's not marrying some ditz or narcissist, but there's something about him that whispers in her mind. Something that keeps her eyes on him and fascinates her like he's some precious stone or ancient treasure at the bottom of the deepest ocean.

It hits her loud and clear.

There's a storm going on in Prince Sol and no one knows it.

The treaty is being discussed, movements made toward unification and peace and Adura wishes she could read his mind and ask, _What do you think? Why?_ _What do you think about politics and reality and love? What do you think about me?_

 _What's going on?_

 _Who are you?_

 _Sol Lucis Caelum_

He already told himself he couldn't have a panic attack in the kitchen. He can't have one here. Scenarios replay themselves over and over again, but Adura is watching him and he needs to look brave, at least look like the son of King Noctis. That's who he is, right? If only he could close his eyes, focus on saying _no, no_ to the blur in his eyes, the racing of his heart. The Darkness isn't far away now. There's no one to tell, no time to tell it, no way to be alone and scream at it until it leaves for now.

If only he could look at Adura in the eye and say, _What do you think about me?_

Because there would be no way for her to know the real truth. No way for her to see that the ache will turn to agony and agony to rage just as the world moves through stages. There's no way for her to see that he's inches away from destroying himself and the world he knows. He's known that this would someday happen – that he wouldn't be able to hold back his Darkness anymore.

This is destiny. Horrifying, cruel, ugly destiny.

He won't have time to ask her, _Who are you?_


	5. Chapter Four

_Adura Invalesca_

Papers signed, pictures taken, hands shaken, it's all political and polite but aside from all the protocol, there's a deep feeling. A feeling of hope, maybe a little fear and trembling, but it's a start to a new chance. Adura watched it all from the official treaty being signed by her father and Sol's father, she even heard the entire clause about her marriage to Prince Sol.

And now as the gentle night falls over the city and the lights inside become brighter and the ceremony is followed by a celebration...it all hits hard. The questions run rampant and the discomfort rises. The ballroom is too bright, to swirling, everybody too graceful. Thoughts race after each other and they all swing from despair to rebellion. She knows she doesn't fit, she knows she could never fit.

But no one asked what she wanted. According to that treaty, she's as good as married without anyone asking her – or Sol – what they really wanted. The rest of her life was decided an hour ago.

Adura suddenly needs a drink.

She stops the first waiter that comes her way, takes a glass and downs the white wine in one fell swallow. It racks at her head and swims in her stomach, burns all the way down. She grips the glass, swings it down by her side and looks out in annoyance at the dancing partners on the marble floor. Everyone is a stranger but worst of all, she is a stranger to them. What would she give for an hour by herself...it's an expensive favor. She winces; fifteen minutes alone?

When she feels a tap on her shoulder, she almost feels sick at the thought of having to socialize, but she turns and it vanishes.

Prince Sol's blue eyes meet hers, a soft defiance within them, visible through the strands of hair. This close and Adura can see that touch of athleticism in his frame; that, though not bulky, he's well-built and dignified in his posture. He's tall for his age, they look at each other straight in the eye. But his movement is stiff and his voice halting. "Allow me the pleasure of this dance?" he asks. Holds out a hand, creased and white.

Adura's eyebrows come down at the realization that the question isn't merely a formality. He's actually asking. She looks down at the hand and notices a small spot of red at his cuff, a thin bandage around his thumb. Looks back at his eyes.

"Forgive me, Your Highness," she says wryly, "but dancing steps are not so well taught in Niflheim anymore."

He smiles almost sad, looks down at the ground. "No, forgive me," he murmurs. "But it doesn't matter, we won't have to actually get in the center of the dancing. We can stay out of that. I can teach you. If you'd like."

Adura shrugs, figures that she might as well learn now. She's certain there will be other times that she'll have to dance. "I'd like that."

She places her hand in his and there's something there, something electric in the touch. Her hands are red and scarred, warmed by revolution and wine. His are cold. Icy cold. But his hold is sure, almost instinct as if he's practiced this over and over again.

"Like this," he whispers as he takes her other hand and places it on his shoulder, laying his own hand respectfully on her waist. "The steps...match each other..like this."

He's looking down at the ground, focusing on the steps and though Adura subconsciously follows along, she stares into his face. Notices the bead of sweat going down his temple, the breathing coming faster, heavier. The hand on her side is shaking but he doesn't say anything. It might be nothing but nervousness and anxiety, maybe he just took a gulp of that scalding wine to get him moving again like she did. But Adura frowns.

"One, two, three," he says slowly, almost inaudible. "One, two...three..."

 _What are you hiding?_

Back and forth, back and forth, it feels easy. Sol is breathing the numbers as if to himself. Adura watches him try to catch her eyes only to pull his away.

The music is almost out of hearing, they're just dancing slowly, emotionless outside of the ring. The light catches onto Queen Lunafreya's dress, flickers like glitter in the corner of Adura's eye.

"Do you like dogs?" Prince Sol suddenly asks and Adura takes a moment to answer.

"I think so," she replies. "I've never owned one. Do you like them?"

"Yes, I do," he answer quickly. "I have one, my mother's dog had a puppy and then he had a puppy and that one is mine. Her name is Lieca."

"Oh," Adura nods, feeling herself smile.

He looks at her and his eyes narrow, the grip of his hand holding hers tightens slowly. "She...she's beautiful and a good dog. You'll like her."

"I'm sure I will."

She frowns. She sounds so absentminded. Because she is.

He falls silent again, their dancing slowing until they're almost completely still. There's a storm coming, Adura knows it, and it's all being channeled from him.

It comes out of her mouth before she has a chance to remind herself about who she's talking to. "What's wrong?"

He scans her face as if trying to discover her true feelings, how much she knows. But what Adura does know is that the stars outside are suddenly covered in clouds. And the wind rattling against the old windowpanes isn't random, nothing is freak but yet it is. The shaking ground beneath her isn't in her head. And she keeps looking into his eyes as if she's discovered the cause there in that deep blue.

"What are you doing?" she whispers.

Adura knows that King Noctis, on the other side of the room, stops dancing with his wife to turn and find Sol in the crowd.

Sol's hands slip from her, he steps away and there's a sparkle in his eyes that wasn't there before. His face has gone completely white, he runs his hands through his hair in an image of panic racking his body. His shoulders are slumped and he bends in on himself as in pain; no longer the tall and beautiful son of Noctis, but an exhausted human being who's giving up. Like there's a monster under his skin.

Her arms are hesitant to fall. They're still held out to him.

"I'm sorry," Sol gasps, a tear shooting down his face. "I wanted to know you. I wanted you to know me. But if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me."

The wind is striking hard against the castle walls now and the world seems to be darkening. The dancing stops and people murmur questions as thunder rolls hard. There's a crackling like hailstones, like flames. There are sparks striking off from Sol's retreating steps.

"Sol?" Adura can hear Noctis calling, people gasping and some even crying out at the lines of the veins in his skin turning dark grey. He falls on his knees, the wind moving like a black tornado around him, cracking the marble floor under Adura's feet. The sound is deafening but she doesn't move.

In that silver, he looks like a storm on the ocean.

Adura shakes her head as if to clear the image from her eyes and she screams above the noise, "What's the matter?!"

Sol's eyes are on his hands, flames beginning to lick around and above them, necrotic smoke, a deep garish purple, building up behind him. That sickly smell brings memories back of Niflheim, visions of her childhood in devastation. It's all back but it's here. It found its home in none other than a son of Lucis.

Sol looks back up at her and aside from all the noise, she can hear his tearful whisper: "I'm scared."

At that moment, the thunderous crash of breaking glass grates on her eardrums, scraping at her, blood shooting from her forehead. She's forced to the ground, the force of the sheer amount of power hurling her across the ballroom floor. The guests scream as a huge demon, its eyes flaming and teeth gleaming, throws itself into the palace through the broken windows. Adura can hear the ringing sound of swords being drawn. When she looks up, eyes clearing, she can see a giant form swathed in smoky darkness roar in the faces of the mere humans before it.

With a shriek, its massive arm sweeps across the guards as if they were mere insects. Adura watches in horror as blood spatters onto the clear floor, streaking across the walls when the bodies strike them. The people run with nowhere to go; Adura knows the demons are surrounding the palace already. It's too late to go anywhere.

The wind and hail crash through the demon's wake and Adura struggles to get up. She tears the lower part of her dress to free her range of motion with her hands and then kicks off her aching heels. She runs across the room through stabbing pieces of glass. She picks up a bloodied sword and tries its weight. It's good, but she's unused to it. There are hardly any such weapons in Niflheim.

"Smart girl, smart girl," she tells herself, lifting it. With a cry she hurls the blade towards the monster's ankle and ducks when she feels the approaching force of it's hand trying to bat away her bothersome stings. It's not much but it buys time. Time, they need time, time until-

Adura gasps, steps back when bigger swords attack the monster, like shooting stars across the ballroom.

She looks back and sees King Noctis, hand held out as if his palm could stop a creature like this. At his command, the weapons of old release an unrelenting attack on the demon, like shooting stars darting into and around the creature. The wind tears at his cape like a wave on rocks, throwing his dark hair back and revealing hard and glassy blue eyes. It's awe-striking, and with Queen Lunafreya by his side with her triton, pure Light springs from them like cosmic beings. They're otherworldly, they're harnessing a power that hasn't been seen for more than twenty years.

It's blinding and terrifying; Adura has to cover her eyes. Her heart is quaking.

And when she finally looks up at the wreckage around her, she doesn't know how long it's been. But the monster has gone. The demons have retreated for now. But the rain still leaks into the palace, the clouds still cover the stars. She struggles to catch her breath, pressing a hand to her chest. She can still feel her sweaty grip on the sword hilt. Her knuckles are white.

There's a hideous silence and Adura watches Noctis, white and eyes still aflame, turn away from the rain and open walls. He turns his back completely on it and then Adura watches his line of sight target one man across the room.

"No-" Adura pants as King Noctis warps across the room and reappears with his hand clasped in a death grip around her father's neck, throwing him hard against the wall.

"Noctis!" Lunafreya cries but Noctis slams Oculus again and again and Adura's eyes sting.

"Stop!" she cries, running, still gripping the sword. No, no, this can't be happening, it's a bad dream-

"How could you do this?!" Noctis demands, almost a monster himself. Adura can see his chokehold tighten with every word. "As if my father and my wife weren't enough for Niflheim, as if I wasn't enough, you target my son?!"

"It wasn't-" Oculus gasps, scratching at Noctis's wrists but his arms fall limp. A sword glitters to life, pressing against Oculus's jugular vein.

"Noctis, stop!" Adura can hear Lunafreya shout behind her but it's moving too fast, she's moving too quickly.

She drops the sword, shoves Noctis's shoulder to face her and then drops to her knees. The sword is there burning against her neck in a flash, but she dares to keep her eyes still fixed on his.

"Do it!" she cries, the sound reverberating in the room. "If you truly believed that this is the work of Niflheim, take my life. Do it, Your Majesty; a child for a child!"

The sword is scalding. Blood drips from the scratch on her forehead and into her eyes. She blinks.

"Noctis," Lunafreya approaches slowly now, carefully, her hand reaching out to touch his arm in smooth, gentle strokes. "Don't. Don't do this, come with me. Don't do this."

Noctis doesn't move, his hand towards her trembling and the chokehold on her father loosening. He gazes into her eyes, a tear falling from his and Adura watches as the kingly mask falls away and at his wife's touch at his hand, he's left bereft. The sword vanishes and Adura breathes again, but Noctis falls on his knees, his forehead pressed to Lunafreya's shoulder. Her fingers tangle in his hair, they press against his neck.

"What happened?" he breathes, his body racking with contained sobs. "How could this have happened?"

"Noctis," Lunafreya whispers, pulling back to cup his face in her hands, "Noctis, we both knew. We both knew he was capable of a power we had never seen before. But we could never know how much or -"

"But this Darkness, where...where could it have- How could we not have known it was there?"

Lunafreya closes her eyes, bows her head. Her fingers tuck strands of hair away from Noctis's eyes and she whispers, barely audible, "I don't know."

Adura looks around her at the sparkling glass on the ground, the rain pouring from the open world. There are sounds of the royal police sirens, lights flashing red outside. The people huddle together, stare at the bodies of the royal guard, their blood painted on the walls. Sol is no where to be seen. He's long gone. To who knows where.

"I knew it the moment I saw him," she says. Breaking the silence into a million pieces.

She can see from the corner of her that Lunafreya looks up at her. She feels her soft hand on her shoulder. "Did you?"

Adura nods. "He was like...like a storm about to break."

There's a pause. Lightning appears just for a moment and thunder rolls after it.

"He must have veiled it so well that it would take a stranger to know that something was wrong," Lunafreya murmurs.

Noctis covers his face with his hands. "I should have known," he whispers, gasping for air. "I should have seen it."

"He didn't want you to see it," Adura shakes her head, getting up but as she turns away, she jumps at the sudden fierce grip on her arm. Looking up, she sees a scarred face, harsh and angry, golden-brown eyes flaming. He's in Kingsglaive uniform, almost deathly in the light and his tattooed hand twists her arm sharp.

"Where is he?!" the Kingsglaive shouts in her face, and Adura struggles to pull her arm back. "Where is Sol, you Niff bitch?!"

Adura pulls one last time before backhanding him and thrusting her forearm to his neck. It's a shock, she knows it by the look on his face and it renders his grip looser. She pulls away from him as Noctis shouts, "Gladio, stop!"

This Gladio looks at her as if he's trying to prepare an even attack, rubbing his decorated neck. "Your Majesty, with your permission, I'll go out and find him now. I swear to you, I'll find him!"

"You have no idea where he is right now," Adura bites.

"He's gotta be in Niflheim," Gladio hisses.

"How dare you assume that just because we are here means that we are out to destroy the royal family?"

"Niffs have done that before."

"This is not the Niflheim of thirty years ago!"

"Then what happened tonight, huh, miss?!" Gladio growls, folding his arms over his massive chest and bending a little to her height, condescending. "We haven't seen demons here for years!"

"You've got to blame someone, huh, mister?" Adura snaps. "You just won't believe that your Prince Sol triggered them himself?"

Gladio hands tighten into fists and one arm jerks back as if preparing to make contact with her face, but Noctis stands and he steps back. Adura watches him; he's aching to move, to get out there and find Sol. That's all that matters to him right now.

"Stop, stop," Noctis says, breathless. "We...we can't do this-" he halts and then turns to Oculus. "I'm sorry, Leader. Forgive me, I was-"

"No, Your Majesty, I understand," Oculus says, his voice barely there after near strangulation. "We have not exactly been trustworthy for very long."

Noctis looks pained, as if the memories are nearly drowning him now. His face is ashen gray, he leans on Lunafreya's arm as if he can barely stand on his own.

"Your Majesty," Gladio insists, stepping forward. "Let me go. Rest yourself, you're not well."

"Gladio, we don't know anything right now," Noctis says tiredly. "Wherever Sol is or what he's doing right now, it's...it's entirely up to him. We'll make a move when we know more."

"And so we wait?" Gladio demands, casting a suspicious glance in Adura's direction. "We may not have time. _He_ may not have time."

"Again, you accuse us of crimes we did not commit," Adura says, feeling the sudden desire to spit in his face.

"Once in Darkness, always in Darkness," he mutters, beginning to walk away. He grips his sword tighter and Adura can't let him go at that, he will not dishonor her country like that, not like that and walk away.

"Hey!" she calls and when he stops, she snarls, "Do you believe that about Sol?"

Gladio jerks around and points the sword right her, she stares at the very tip just inches from her eyes. Chooses to look above it and into his face.

"If I find out any of you Niffs are involved, you're first," he says in a monotone. "You will not dishonor the prince."

"Gladio!" Noctis insists, but he hardly moves.

"And you will not dishonor Niflheim," Adura answers, "by your tactless words when we have come in peace."

"Adura, please," she can hear her father whisper.

"Gladiolus," a firm voice behind him and Gladio groans, rolls his eyes, but doesn't move his sword a centimeter from her. "Gladiolus, stop."

Adura looks behind him and sees a Kingsglaive man, maybe a few years older than King Noctis, tinted glasses covering his eyes. He's being led by a younger man, with sharp blonde hair – similar to Sol's – by the arm.

"Gladio, drop the sword. Don't think I cannot tell what you're doing."

"Aren't you brilliant," Gladio scoffs, the sword disappearing in a shower of white sparks. He turns away, stomping towards his companions. "How did you guess?"

"I'm sorry, Adura," Noctis mutters. "He wouldn't have hurt you. But he _is_ disrespectful to you and your father, and for that I apologize." He seems to try to smile, but it only lasts a second. "He loves Sol."

Adura sighs, presses a hand to her forehead where dried blood is starting to stick. She watches King Noctis turn away, hears Gladio searching for survivors, helps her father up in robotic movements. It's almost like she cannot grasp where she is.

How could everything have gone so wrong, as if things were not complicated enough? Everything, scattered about like the glass broken and lying prone and sharp and deadly.

There will be no sleep for anyone tonight. Adura sits in the middle of the ballroom, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. The destruction around her, the death...she's seen it all before, back in Niflheim. This is the same result of revolution, of ruthless devastation. But there is no thrill, no sense that right was done, that there will ever be peace again. It's grieving.

Grieving everywhere.

She jolts when King Noctis nearly collapses to his knees next to her, looking into her eyes as if for answers. But he just reaches out for her hand, his fingers just barely brushing her palm.

"You..." he whispers then takes a shuddering breath, "...were the last one to touch him."

* * *

 **Sorry this one took so long, folks! Personal stuff going on and all that junk. I think there's going to be a couple of twists in the story here and there, but I shall say one thing; it'll be easier to understand if you have seen the beautiful FF film Kingsglaive! It provides such a great background to the FFXV game and also if you've seen it, you'll know what's going on the next chapter. I'm sorry if my story seems slow, I'm not completely satisfied with it but I hope you're enjoying it at least a little bit. If you are, please review as it is very encouraging. It really motivates me to keep on working on it for you. In fact, I was thinking about deleting the whole thing until I got a follow this morning. It meant a whole lot to me. 3**


	6. Chapter Five

_Sol Lucis Caelum_

The world is gray, the breeze is salty and he can hear something like fingers plucking harps, waves crashing, a crying on the wind. He's scared, but he keeps moving through the roots on the ground. There's a deep color splattered across the tree bark and he approaches, touching the garish marks. He steps back in horror when he realizes it's blood, it's still wet and stains his fingertips.

Owls screech above his head, the branches reaching for the sky like skeleton fingers. This forest isn't home. It's not even his mother's home. There's no beauty here, no room for it. Only the sinking feeling that everything has been corrupted, polluted. Twisted.

He runs, he runs and then he struggles up the hill. He's running out of time, he's running –

He's run out of time.

Sol reaches the top of the hill and sees dead bodies lying all through the bloody valley, a hideous desolation that brings him to his knees. There's a hundred flags whipping in the empty wind.

All this death, all this grieving – all wrought by him.

Sol's hand destroyed them all, slit their throats with an open flame and left them for the vultures.

He steps down the rocky ledge, walks through them all and sees young and old, royalty and commoner, familiar faces. People he knows, everyone from the guard outside the palace gates to Miss Cindy from Hammerhead. Their eyes lifeless, bodies open. All done by him, all done by him.

He dares to stop about halfway through this horror, breath catching in his lungs, red lining his vision, he begs, _please, please don't let it be them, please!_

Sol collapses next to his father's body, his glassy open eyes facing the cloudy sky, hand reached out for Luna at his side. Her beautiful white dress is stained with dark blood, the triton is useless under her frozen hand. It's almost as if, while Noctis was dying, Luna struggled to come closer, to lie next to her husband one last time.

"No. No, no, please," Sol sobs, cradling his father's head on his lap, moving the hair out of the bloodied eyes. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't want-"

Tears fall from his face, he struggles to breathe, shrieks, " _Gladio!_ "

It's enough for him to want to reach out at that mocking sky, grip it like a curtain and hurl it to the ground, to burn everything in his sight and himself with it. Sparks shoot off from his hands, it chokes him from within and he stumbles back from his dead parents as if they burned him. The ground is shaking again, the sun is melting into thick liquid darkness. He wants to scream, he wants to die, he wants –

" _What is your desire, son of Lucis?_

Sol opens his eyes and finds himself in the center of a great obsidian circle, smooth and gleaming hard. It's like black glass but there are orange lights emanating from it, swirling beneath the surface. Sol looks behind him to see that there is glass there, a huge glass wall encasing wild raging flames. It's terrifying, like hellfire. He struggles to stand up, to back away from the overwhelming heat. He's still wearing the royal garb he had from...how long ago? How long has it been since everything changed?

" _What do you want, son of Lucis?"_

The voice repeats, a grating deep voice...almost like Gladio's, but like a snake in the grass, its hiss right in his ear. Sol looks all around him for a face, but it seems like he's alone. He can't tell for sure though, not completely; it's so dark except for where the fire glows strong and leaps up to the ceiling.

"I want-"

He stops. Why should he tell anyone what he really wants, who is this person speaking to him, why is he here, why did he give up?

"I want to go home."

There's a pause and then the voice comes again, slow and quiet. " _This is your home, young Sol Lucis Caelum. And from the way you seemed last night, one would have thought you were desperate to be set free into your Darkness."_

"No," Sol gasps, struggling to stand but the world is turning, he's so dizzy. "No, that's not-"

" _Then explain what happened to you last night!"_ The voice shouts, the sound reverberating harshly through the room.

Last night. What has felt like ages, centuries has only been 24 hours at most. Sol looks down at his hands, remembers the panic rising up in him, flooding his brain, even eclipsing the breathtaking contact with Adura. She was there, she saw it all. But it doesn't even matter anymore. Everything was just despair, hatred, anger. Fear.

A fear that froze him and then set him on fire.

He was terrified. Still is. He gazes into those flames.

" _Explain to me why you backed away from that woman. Hell, you didn't even answer your father's call. Explain why you simply dropped everything and gave up in your long fight against your Darkness."_

Sol shakes his head, eyes stinging with heat and raging light. The voice, it sounds too much like the one inside his head. It was always there, constant, day in and day out.

It's too similar. And Sol's used to snapping back at it.

So he hisses, "No. You explain."

There's a pause and then the voice rumbles in amusement, " _You have your father's penchant for demanding whatever he wants and getting it."_

"Thanks."

" _And his sharp wit. Since you asked so politely, I will tell you what you want to know. I will give you the true reason you are here."_

Sol's hands are shaking, his chest is heaving. He doesn't move.

" _You are here because you were born."_

He needs to sit down, he reaches for the floor and nearly falls down, keeps his hands on it. "What?"

" _You seem slow to understand. The apple truly does not fall far from the tree."_

"Speak clearly!" Sol gasps.

The voice scoffs, _"You were born, Prince Sol. That is why you are here. Your birth triggered a sequence of events that you can never escape from. Just as I can never run from my own deeds. You and I are locked within the prison of destiny."_

"Who are you?!"

" _I am only a piece of dead history. All I have is my past. And the remnants of the greatest piece of Magitek that wretch Verstael ever created. And now I have you."_

"No, wait, I don't-"

" _I have waited long, son of Noctis. Waited and prayed for something to free me of myself and give me what I once had: unlimited strength, an unlimited source of Darkness. With Noctis's ascent, all the Darkness infused in Magitek died. But now I have received my answer and my destiny. It all began, not quite twenty years ago, when the demon Aghuat rose one winter night and the mighty King Noctis went out to banish it with his pure Light. His child was born that night and as Aghuat retreated, little did Noctis know that a demon wrought a curse, that the dying Darkness of the former age would meld itself to the child. As the young prince's Lucii power grew within him, the dark power_ _grew as well. And now, Sol Lucis Caelum, you are a living, breathing force for Darkness if ever the world has seen it, in this age or the one to come."_

Sol grits his teeth, reels to the ground. "No, _no_!" he cries, striking the rock floor with his fists, ignoring the tears that hit the gleaming surface. "You're a liar! You're lying to me!"

" _I am not lying. I have seen it all with the little dark arts I gleaned from Izunia's craft. It's all too true. You are the catalyst, Sol. It was ordained from your birth. It is appropriate then, that at the prime of your life, that you accept your fate and claim your Darkness."_

Sol screams, he cries, shouts at the wall of fire and kicks against the tide coming in strong, a wave of darkness that belongs to him. It all makes sense, he makes sense now. He's just a tool in this monster's hands. He's just an engine for Darkness to fuel this voice.

" _Like I said. We are prisoners of destiny."_

"Leave me alone!" Sol cries, fists pressed to the scalding glass wall, tear-filled eyes staring in shock at the liquid Darkness seeping from in between his fingers in black silhouette. "I won't do it! You can't make me!"

" _It's not a matter of me forcing you, Sol. It's you being unable to control yourself."_

And isn't that what the voices have always been telling him? That he cannot control it?

" _By the stars...if you couldn't even keep it in on the evening of a ceremony, with everyone to impress and delight with your sweetness, your goodness, the famed purity of Crown Prince Sol..what is to stop you from raising your hand against your mother, even your father?"_

There is only the noise, the excruciating pain, his screams.

" _The wise Aghuat spoke the truth. Through your power, you could easily take over all of Lucis. And you have another power, maybe stronger than your Darkness and it speaks much of you. You have power over your father. Not even the King of Light could raise his hand against his only son, his precious son."_

This Darkness has swallowed him up and if he can't control it, if he can't even grasp who is in front of him, then he doesn't have any hope. There would be no point in fighting against it. Sol can't breathe anymore. He can only get on his hands and knees.

" _You're nothing without your Darkness as I am nothing without my past."_

"Please," Sol sobs, looking up at the black ceiling as if his captor could look at him in the face from up there. "Please, I beg you, why? Why are you doing this to me?! Please, please have mercy In the name of heaven, have mercy on me!"

" _There is no mercy!"_ the voice roars, shaking the flames and turning Sol's eyes away. " _No mercy for a traitor to the Lucian line like myself, even less a vessel of Darkness like you! All that is left for us to do is to make the best of what little time we have. You will be my source of Darkness to refuel the armor I used to rule with. I will take my revenge using you."_

"Please don't do this -"

" _I will not go down in the annals of time as defeated by an_ _immigrant with a lost cause. I swear, I will not be remembered as a pawn for Niflheim but as someone who fought for what he believed in. I fought by the side of a king who did not give a damn about me and if I ran a sword through his heart, it was because he thrust one into mine. A betrayal for a betrayal, a destruction for destruction, a child for a child. And I will still fight Lucis_ _as I did under Niflheim until the Citadel falls on its own damned sword or we all burn in hell!"_

"Who are you?!" Sol demands again, this time looking to the shadows facing the flames, facing him.

And with a crackling sound, a man with scars lining his bearded face, metal pieces coming out of a hole in his bare chest, his shoulders covered only with a ripped black cape. His trousers look ancient and his boots are scuffed, but they are all of a signature black color so well known to Sol. His hands are clenched and his green eyes are like iridescent steel piercing into Sol's heart.

With a grim smile, he throws a tiny object to Sol, it slides across the smooth ground with a clink. Sol stares at the well-known insignia encased in silver touching his leg. Dragon wings, fourteen swords and one great blade in the tight grip of a Lucian king's metallic form. He used to finger it from when he was just a toddler, resting against Gladio's shoulder and touching the medallion on his sleeve.

It means everything, it means the kingdom will stand strong under its symbol, it meant that Sol would be safe until the day he died. It means that King Noctis will never fight Darkness alone.

A hot tear slides down his face.

" _Kingsglaive_ ," Sol whispers.

"You should know, son of Noctis," the man says in a monotone. "You know of the man who believed he destroyed me. Who died at dawn because he believed in an empty worthless future. Recognize what happened to him... and see who I am now."

Sol backs away on the ground as the man approaches, towering over him. The fire plays hideous shadows on his face, his long hair falling lank over his eyes.

"Your hero Nyx Ulric died as a failure. I won't be known as the same."

"You're-" Sol breathes, "you're Titus Drautos."

"No," the man shakes his head and hisses, "I'm Glauca."


	7. Chapter Six

_Adura Invalesca_

She splashes the water into her face, wiping away the makeup, scrubbing at her lips. Wincing at the strike of hot water against the cut on her forehead. It all swirls in the white marble sink: muddy orange and pink, an ugly backwash smooths into the drain.

Adura shuts off the water and breathes heavily, water dripping off her face and hair sticking to her sweaty neck. She stares at the drain in a slight horror, as if expecting the memories of last night...early this morning...all of it, to go down with the mask she put on for these people.

"You guys got your own kind of drama, huh?" she whispers, to the whole country.

It's too late for Noctis to say, _"please, please let's_ _ **not**_ _acknowledge the elephant in the room about the demons suddenly breaking into the palace and that everybody has a cell phone that can record literally everything"_ so footage replaying the wreckage is all over the news. Every eye in the country has seen it and it infuriates Noctis: she saw it twist him from the inside as he glared at the screen. That's one thing that really rubs Adura the wrong way; he was actually hoping to stem freedom of the press.

Adura stands straight and looks at herself in the mirror, notices the dark sleepless lines under her eyes, the cut bleeding anew, the chapped redness of her lips.

Dads would do a lot of stuff for their kids. That's the thing.

She sighs and throws the towel down on the counter.

But the real thing is that no one outside the palace actually knows Prince Sol is missing. All they know is that the palace is wrecked because monsters came to life from the inside, the Kingsglaive are out crawling the city and armed guards out in force at the borders. The people think the royal Glaive are hunting for demons and though that is true to a degree, they're really hunting for Sol. For a kid barely out of his teens who messed it all up last night.

What an epic failure.

Adura shrugs out of the dress, filling out her ribcage as soon as she unzips the gown in the back and it stops acting like a straitjacket. She has a sudden desire to wear all black, just a simple black t-shirt with –

She stops. Tosses around her suitcase and groans. She should wear a skirt, she is still in Insomnia and in the king's palace. There is still a degree of formality to keep up.

Just not as much. So she puts on a long white skirt (not knowing where it came from), checks how it looks in the long mirror in her room. She raises an eyebrow, it's actually kind of comfortable, loose around her hips. And in a way - Adura comes closer to the mirror now - it's...pretty.

There's a simplicity, a feeling that isn't fake at all that says that she looks real, alive. Standing there with her long dark hair down and sans her boots or her heels, just bare feet. No jewelry around her neck, no earrings, not even her own numerous piercings she prefers. The blood is coagulating, sharp red against the gold of her skin. There's someone different there in the mirror.

It's not Adura the revolutionary or Adura the bride-to-be. It's just her. Like looking at a stranger and yet knowing exactly who's there in front of you.

She reaches out and touches her reflection and then shakes her head: "Did I wait this long to become me? When...when Sol showed up as himself last night?"

That raging smoke, the clouds setting in. Noctis panicking and Sol was... _scared_. Choice word, scared and what of? His dad figuring out who he really was? And Adura stood there like an idiot with her arms still held out to him as if he was her own, as if that treaty had anything to say to her, _as if she believed it!_

Adura starts when there's a soft knock at the door. She growls softly to herself and then straightens, hopes it's just some guard or maybe even her father. She needs to rant, she needs to get all this off her chest.

"Come in," she says, with more of a whine in her voice than she meant.

The door opens, creaking a little and Adura's wince vanishes. Queen Lunafreya's hair is also let down, her tired eyes showing nothing but kindness. She herself is dressed in loose clothing, a light dress of pale blue like a robe. Her hands rest against the door and she asks gently, "Do you mind if we speak together, Adura? We have never had the chance...since..."

"Oh," Adura mutters, fidgeting and then backing up and curtsying quickly. "Your Majesty, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Please don't be," Lunafreya says, smiling a little and taking her hand. "It's my honor to meet a true believer in freedom and unity, a friend of Lucis. You behaved very bravely, very _nobly_ last night, Adura."

Brave and noble, huh? She was just thinking a whole lot of crap about her son.

"You're bleeding," Lunafreya murmurs, her fingers touching the graze just slightly. "Let me help you."

"Oh, no, Your Majesty, you don't have to," Adura stutters. "I'm alright really."

"Come sit," Lunafreya says, still holding her hand and leading her back into the bathroom to the chair before the mirror. Adura shakes her head, can't believe the queen of Lucis is doing this. This careful movement of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. The slow movements of pressing a damp cloth to her forehead, finding a small container of a sweet smelling salve and smearing it across the cut. Adura grimaces as Lunafreya's hands touch her face. The queen of Lucis and the daughter of Niflheim. It doesn't fit, it doesn't work.

Lunafreya's beautiful face is contorted by a frown of concern, fear maybe. The light blue of her eyes are clouded by racing thoughts. Adura looks up into them.

Sol's eyes were like that. You could see the mind within working, slaving even.

"He...he looks like you." She dares to murmur it.

Lunafreya's fingers stop and she exhales. Adura can see a small tremble in her lower lip. "Sol –" and she sighs. Starts over, "What happened last night...we never imagined would happen."

"You had no idea?"

"None." Lunafreya turns to the sink to wash the salve off her fingers, shaking her head. "When Noctis and I decided to have a child, we knew that he or she would would be granted Lucian power as well as my own gifts. And quite possibly, the child could be more powerful than either of us. Sol had never spoken to us of experimenting with those powers, but all we knew was that he _could_ command them. If he wished to."

She shakes the water off her hands, takes the towel but stares off into space, grief flowing into her eyes. "But we had no reason to believe that he was fighting an inner war. The two of you were dancing...Noctis and I were as well. And we sensed a darkness in that moment but it kept coming in and out, as if it was being quelled and then rising back again. And Noctis turned and saw Sol and...Sol saw him..."

"He couldn't help it."

"He was so afraid!" Lunafreya breathes, clutching the towel, her voice quivering. "I've never seen Sol so frightened."

There's a silence for a moment until Queen Lunafreya begins to fold the towel, placing it neatly to the side. "My dear Adura," she says slowly. "I myself have never been so frightened. In all my years, even during the Starscourge. I have never been so frightened."

Adura gets up, turns her back on the queen, never mind protocol and politeness. It just can't matter now. She folds her arms over her chest and feels like kicking the bedpost facing her.

"Why?" Adura asks, reaching out to grip the dark wood, steadying herself. "Why are you frightened, Queen Lunafreya? Because your son has completely forsaken you and your husband for Darkness and its power? Or that you never knew he was really a monster?"

There isn't an answer for a few deathly seconds and when Adura turns back, she sees Lunafreya leaning against the counter. Her hand clenches the cold marble, her arm is pressed against her stomach as if she feels sick. Even in the dim light, reflected in the mirror, Adura can see a tear fall from her eye.

"What frightens me is that he felt he could not tell me," she whispers.

Adura swallows against the rock in her throat. She doesn't know why she feels like crying as well – all she knows about Sol is that he is (maybe _was_ ) a prince of Lucis who summoned a demonic power last night and is now missing. Maybe for good.

But the world is mourning, she feels it and here before her, his mother cries softly.

Adura looks down at the ground. Dads do everything to protect their children and even monsters have mothers.

"Oh," Lunafreya suddenly gasps, pressing her fingers to her face to clear it of tears, standing straight and then forcing a smile to her face. She turns it to her. "Forgive me. You did not have the chance to know him as I do."

It's like she read her mind.

"Please come with me," she says, offering an arm to her and when Adura hesitantly takes it (does one simply take the arm of a queen?), she leads her out of the room.

Lunafreya rests a hand against hers, her shoes clacking on the floor as she leads Adura down a few hallways. Adura can see people gathering outside the palace, white Glaive police lights reflecting with the sun and shooting through the glass windows. She has to look away. She can't stand seeing all those people who automatically suspect Niflheim is the cause.

And it hits her. Oh, Niflheim is ruined once more by the angry eyes and hateful words. Her country carried memories and it all came back real as ever last night. Now their name will always hold terror and be a harbinger of demonic destruction, hated by the world for yet another age. Of course that prince had to lose it on the night they were there –

"Here," Lunafreya says, stopping in front of a door, the only one in this hallway except for the great beautifully decorated ones at the dead end. Adura studies it, its glorious swirls and statues of great kings on each side. It has to be the king and queen's bedroom.

But Lunafreya is turning the knob of this one and it jingles. Adura tilts her head, finds that there's a light green tassel that's been tied to it, with tiny bells and charms of different kinds. A little ball of colorful fake fur, white ribbons, plastic models of keys and swords. It almost touches the ground.

"He made that when he was ten," Lunafreya says, a quiet laugh coming to her sad voice. "He said that he wanted us to hear him if he got up. He's never taken it off."

She ought not stare so much.

But the room is like entering into a different world and she can't help it. A single bed with navy blue coverlets, shining silk,. A few bookcases of dark mahogany, comic books spread over their tops, a record player with stickers on its side. Adura walks slowly over the carpeted floor, notices the brown lace-up boots in the corner, small frames on the wall, pictures of Sol and his family. She recognizes one face from last night. Noctis called him Gladio. Gladio was his name and in one he has his fiercely tattooed arm thrown carelessly over Sol's shoulder. Laughter, love. Light.

There's a sword leaning against one of the bookcases, tall and slender and beautiful. Like Sol.

There are twinkling lights hanging over the bed canopy like tiny stars. The desk facing the half-open windows is covered in books and homework, a closed laptop (with even more stickers), a cold cup of tea. There's a tiny note tucked into the ones of the open pages of his books. _You've got this! -Uncle Prompto_. Little marker smiles all over.

Everything is navy and white and gold, everything is alive and pulsing with the absence of the owner of all these little things. A twenty-year-old prince lived here and slept in this bed with the lights sparkling above him, there's one bookcase shelf with a chocobo plushie that is faded and squeezed to death. Here he worked on his school –

"And he didn't want to go to college?" Adura suddenly asks, curiosity striking her.

"He preferred not to go to college, at least not yet," Lunafreya smiles. "He said he was too busy. Though his studies are advancing with the assistance of a private tutor, he made that decision himself. He wanted to strengthen his skills."

"Skills?"

Lunafreya nods and beckons with a finger toward a door that is opposite the bed, equally intricately decorated. She opens it and turns on the light switch on the other side, glancing back at her from over her shoulder. "Come."

Adura enters the room, stops and catches her breath.

Canvas. Canvas everywhere, hanging on the walls, resting on easels, stacked up blank against the wall. Covered in color, splashes seemingly thrown about at random, pieces of mixed media glued and molded to the surface. Paint is stained to the ground, paintbrushes are sticking upright. A few cups of murky water stand still in the silence. A stereo sits in the center of the room, the buttons touched by colorful fingers, red and white.

Adura smiles when she sees two cups, both holding liquid of two different colors. Written in permanent marker on one: _Paint water!_ The other, _Not paint water!_

She walks towards a canvas sitting against an easel and can see the pencil outlines of a face, familiar etchings. Adura can tell just by the edges sketched in that it was going to be a painting of King Noctis. Sol didn't get to finish it.

"This one is my favorite," Lunafreya says, and Adura straightens to look at one hanging on the wall. Lunafreya stares at it in a mother's pride, but a sincere quiet awe.

The face in the huge canvas is shown at an angle, a man standing strong and lifelike, almost photographic. His jaw is strong, the hair braided in the back rests against his broad shoulders. His eyes are grey, expression soft and thoughtful, a little black mark appearing just below the left eye. He is dressed in the stately Kingsglaive uniform, the silver insignia on his shoulder, a cape falling over his shoulder. A blade at his side. A ring on his hand.

"This is Nyx Ulric," Lunafreya explains, noticing Adura's intent focus on the painting. "He fought General Glauca of the Fallen Empire until the last moments of his life. He and his friend saved me, helped me across the border of Insomnia to get the ring of the Lucii to Noctis. When I told Sol of his story, it touched him deeply. I believe...he idolizes him."

"I've heard of him," Adura says softly. "He was a brave man."

"A noble one," Lunafreya replies. "Sol captured that so well. I believe he often thinks about Nyx Ulric. He told me once that he wanted to be like him."

"Really?" Adura whispers and Lunafreya nods sharply as if she was trying to make her see, make her understand. She turns away from the painting, walks out of the studio quickly and back into the bedroom. Adura follows, watching her bow her head, stop next to the bedpost. Lunafreya sniffles, wipes a tear from her eye.

"I know it is difficult for you to see someone other than the... _monster_ you saw last night," she whispers. "He summoned an evil power, he brought back horrible memories for you and your people. You should know that you are released from the marriage contract should you choose to be. For I do not know where this shall end or how. I pray that it won't be in the death of my son."

She turns around and holds out her arms as if to clasp the whole room to her. A bittersweet, heartbroken smile spreads across her face.

"I know you did not know him," she weeps freely, "but tell me; do you sense a Darkness here? Here in this grace, this haven of joy and love?"

"Your Majesty..." Adura croaks, but cannot go on. The room is warm and those lights are glittering and the open window lets in a breeze that turns a few pages of Sol's books. But there's nothing to be said.

The room speaks a sweet poetry, but there are volumes unspoken. But Adura shakes her head. No.

Sol Lucis Caelum was an excellent liar.

* * *

"We're leaving," her father says. Oculus's tired eyes look out at the darkened city, the windows streaked with rain. "We are no longer welcome here."

Adura looks up at him from her intense gaze into space, her arm propped against a couch pillow. She stretches her legs out onto the shimmering coffee table and sighs. "Were we ever?"

Oculus doesn't answer, but he turns from the window. She feels his cold hand rest on her shoulder. "We came with best intentions. If people accuse us otherwise, we have no choice and no rights. We represent Niflheim of all places."

"We represent a different Niflheim," Adura snaps, frowning. "They have no right to judge us-"

"Yes, they do," Oculus says, sitting down next to her, leaning forward to attract her gaze. "We cannot prove anything and we have only our history to speak for us. We cannot prove our innocence."

Adura is silent. The thunder rolls on, Glaive sirens shriek through the storm. The air conditioner blows a soft breeze in Adura's direction, she blinks a few times. She looks up at the huge grandfather clock in the terrace-green suite and squints to read the time.

One thirty.

Her hands start sweating and she takes a deep breath. Before they parted ways, Queen Lunafreya said that King Noctis would have a meeting with his council at about one o'clock. She can imagine even now, that wretch Gladio probably tearing Niflheim to shreds, accusing Oculus of distracting the king, snarling that Adura herself probably seduced the prince to darkness. And these people, so insistent on the prince's innocence and pure goodness, will probably agree.

And if Lunafreya showed her anything today, Noctis will definitely agree.

Her people, forever shamed by the past, will be forever shamed in the future.

Adura grips the pillow and bites her lip. Any second now, she will do something irrevocable. Something she can never bite back again, something that will change everything and everyone.

It looms in her mind like the storm Insomnia is soaking in, like the storm Sol brought on, the storm he was.

She gets up. She walks out of the room, ignoring her father's call. She runs back to her bedroom and wraps her hair up into a loose bun. Stares at herself in the mirror and steels her face.

Sol came as himself. And so will she.

Adura races through the halls, ignores the questioning glances of the guards, the scoff of the servants ( _"that wretched Niff"_ ). Her skirts gather around her ankles, she hitches the hem up to keep from tripping down the stairs. The elevator is much too slow coming down ( _cut the cords and we'll go down_ ) and when she faces the wide doors of the council room, she knows that this is where the fight begins.

The hands are rough as they clasp around her arms, two guards struggle to stop her, "Lady Adura, you are ordered to-" but she shoves against the doors using all three of them together. The loud creaking echoes in the massive room, the council members turn in shock. King Noctis Lucis Caelum stands and fires a burning glare at her. Adura stares back.

"Your Majesty, I beg an audience!" she cries, snatching herself away.

Everyone turns back to Noctis, his cold eyes shooting through her as if she was a ghost. He blinks once and nods shortly. "Speak."

Adura catches her breath. "I mourn the loss of your son. I know not what happened to him and I will gladly give any information or insight I might have about him. But please, Your Majesty, know this: Niflheim is not the perpetrator of this grievous act nor should an entire country be judged because of a reigning Darkness in the prince's heart!"

" _Silence!_ " a fierce, angry roar rips through the room and that same one who attacked her last night, that Gladio stands up and glares at her. Rage echoes in his voice as he shouts, "Don't you _dare_ think yourself on his level, don't you dare judge him!"

"Did you not see him last night?!" Adura demands, stepping forward.

"I knew him from the day he was born!" he comes around the table, towers over her. "You have no idea who he is!"

"And do you know Niflheim as it is now," Adura snarls, "or are you so fixed on the past that you refuse to see us?"

"It would be hasty to accuse, try, and sentence an entire country in less than twenty-four hours since the incident, Gladiolus," one of the council members offers, and older man, his eyes hidden by tinted glasses. He smirks a little. "Besides, what would be their motivation?"

"Revenge?" Gladiolus looks back at Adura, who rolls her eyes. "Niflheim was once the greatest empire on earth and now Lucis is vulnerable, weakened by the good times?"

"Are you joking?" Adura scoffs. "We can barely get transportation out here. How would we besiege Lucis?"

"By threatening the prince, compromising the king!"

"Just shut up, both of you!" King Noctis suddenly cries, the kingly visage dropping and shattering like a piece of glass. He sits back in his chair, covering his face with his hands. "Would you stop yelling, Gladio? I appreciate your opinion but at a different volume."

Adura raises an eyebrow at Gladio. He glowers at her.

Noctis rests his hands against the arms of the chair, taking a deep breath. His face is grey, his hair slips into his eyes. He looks up from the table to Adura.

"There is...no explanation for what happened to Sol last night. There have been no signs of Darkness in him, no signs of demonic activity anywhere near us. And though I will not accuse anyone, the only difference to be found is the presence of Niflheim leaders. There's no way to prove guilt...but there's no way to prove innocence."

The back of Adura's neck burns and she looks down at the floor. It's just what her father said.

And she's always been out to counteract.

They say that's how you fight with a long sword. You keep counteracting, keep up the fight, keep the heat up.

"Your Majesty," she says, slowly looking back up. "I will prove our innocence."

"How?" Noctis asks, raising his head.

Adura looks at Gladiolus, at the council members, at the hopeful azure eyes of the one sitting next to King Noctis. He leans forward, his blonde hair shimmering in the chandelier light. He is waiting for her to speak, almost begging her to say the words that spill so quickly over her tongue:

"I will find and rescue the crown prince if it is the last thing I do."


End file.
